Burning Bridges
by Red Room Flare
Summary: One-shot. You know the letter Alice always hurriedly scribbles to her mother right before she dashes off back to Underland? This is that letter, except Alice's in no hurry and Tarrant's on her mind.


_Summary: So… you know the letter Alice always hurriedly scribbles to her mother before she dashes off back to Underland? Well, this is how I imagine it would read. _

_Disclaimer: Don't own anything, the usual people do: Carroll, Burton, et al. Credit for the Capitalization of Nouns goes to everyone who's used it before me, especially author Manniness because it was through her One Promise Kept Trilogy that I finally got how the Capitalization made sense. Also, credit to anyone who ever thought and wrote to have Alice leave a letter in parting to her Mother, because that's what got me thinking about this in the first place. _

_Rating: I'm going with the T, for the Teensie-Tiny suggestion of something-or-other. _

_Canon: Sure! _

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Mother Dearest:

I've long debated the contents of this letter. When I tell you that it has been over three years in the writing, you'd do well to believe me. It seems I've been composing it inside my head from the minute I waved goodbye at you from the deck of the Wonder, on the dawn of that first marvelous trip to the East.

Well, no. If I'm to be honest—and I've sternly commanded myself to be so in all respects when it concerns this, the Most Important Letter I'll ever write you—I've been writing this missive in the back of my mind since very long ago. I was writing it as a teenager, hiding away from balls and calls, tearing desperately at my corset and stockings. I was writing it as a girl, lying stark awake after another night of nightmares. I was writing it before I could write, when my imagination and its inhabitants appeared more real than you, my dear mother, my father and Margaret ever were.

In any case, I prefer to simplify matters and only refer to this Letter as it has existed from my first sea voyage and onwards. You should know, first and foremost, its true nature, set from inception: this is a goodbye letter, Mother.

Before you wonder Where I'm going, for How Long, Who With, and all those others very motherly and sensible Questions you always keep about your person, I must insist that you first consider my reasons for departure. They will, I hope, help you to better make sense—a fruitless endeavor, I assure you, but I know how dearly you cling to it—of my Decision and ultimate Destination.

I leave because I cannot stand the life of Alice Kingsley, be she in London, Bangkok, Hong Kong, or any point in between. Please, do not misunderstand me: her life is a good one. In many ways, she is a very lucky young lady; she's been hand-picked to participate in a job at which she excels and which is not only profitable but meaningful to her. She's had, and will most likely continue to have, the opportunity to travel the expanse of the known world, and witness the many amazing sights it holds. She has a kind, doting elder sister, and a wonderful, loving mother who has always put up with her many eccentricities. Alice Kingsley loves her mother very much, and she loves her life; she is supremely grateful for it.

But I am not Alice Kingsley, not anymore. Perhaps I never was her. Who I am is Alice; Absolutely Alice, someone said once, and of all the titles I've held that is the one I love best. Absolutely Alice—that is to say, I—cannot stand the life of Alice Kingsley. Absolutely Alice is bored with numbers and inventory, with self-important business associates and the bureaucracy of imports. She is disgusted at a trade that is slowly consuming a millenary land and poisoning her countrymen. She is utterly disappointed to find that, for all their superficial differences, the people of China and India and Persia are quite the same as those in England, and that there is hardly one in the lot who doesn't disapprove of her in one way or another. (She also reluctantly acknowledges the hypocrisy of that feeling, seeing as there is hardly one in the lot whom _she_ approves of entirely) Absolutely Alice adores her mother and sister, but is tired of causing them nothing but anxiety, worry, embarrassment and heartbreak.

If there were no other option, perhaps Absolutely Alice could sleep her life away restlessly inside Alice Kingsley, kept somewhat tranquil and content with the life and love that is her due in this world. Alas, that is not so. In her Heart of Hearts, Absolutely Alice holds tight the knowledge that there exists Somewhere she belongs through and through. She's known this from a very early age, forgot it for awhile, and promptly remembered it on the occasion of Hamish Ascot's wedding proposal, when the Choice might've been lost forever if she'd only been a little less selfish and a lot more committed to her mother's wishes.

By now you must be achingly curious—I know you find the trait scandalous, but I possess it in such vast amounts that it cannot possibly have been inherited only through my father's side—to know of that Somewhere to which I plan to emigrate. I beg you to control the unruly Question for a little longer, and not to indulge in my own salacious habit of skimming over to the end of the message in earnest search of the desired information. I urge you to do this for I know the following paragraphs are the ones most likely to aide you in dealing with my Decision, since they concern a matter for which you've often expressed great interest, that is to say, Marriage.

Yes, you've read correctly. I've referred to that most avoided—by me, at least—of 'M' words. I'll be twenty-three this year, and though that is still a perfectly marriageable age, by now you and Margaret have accepted what I've always secretly know: Alice Kingsley will never marry. She is little likely to find a man who will accept her; for the rest of the world, she is not only Half-Mad, but her reputation has also been ruined by three years spent traveling un-chaperoned. (In all fairness, once again, any man is little likely to be found acceptable by Alice Kingsley, so the point might've been moot from the start) I know that the fact that your youngest daughter is doomed to spinsterhood has always brought you great grief, and that you incessantly worry about what will become of her after your death, may it still be long in coming.

Now, I find myself quite unable to procure the precise words to acutely express what I mean to get at through all this rambling, so I've resolved simply to write it plainly and be done with it. Absolutely Alice is in Love. The Man in question is quite beyond Alice Kingsley's reach, but close to Absolutely Alice's grasp. He is in fact partly responsible for Absolutely Alice's coming into being, and it was him that named me as such.

You must be wondering where I met this Man and who he is. For now, I will only say that I met him in my travels and have known him for a very long time. He knew me as a child and later as a young woman, and recognized who I truly am before I'd even discovered it myself. He is kind, and full of wonderful joy and imagination. He is brave, too, and skilled at his trade; loyal, intelligent and greatly perceptive. It is he who has given me the courage to pursue my true self and become who I was always meant to be, which wonderfully enough, is who I always _wanted_ to be as well.

I will also say that he is tradesman, a haberdasher, with a secure and prosperous position in a royal court far from here. I tell you this not because I find it particularly important, but because I know you will fret as to whether I'm well-taken care of. I realize you'd hoped I would marry into aristocracy, but please trust me when I say that Tarrant—that's his name—while a tradesman, is nobility of the most important kind: that of the Spirit. But I suppose you will find greater comfort in knowing that he is a personal friend of his Queen, who owes him not only her throne but also her life. You will also enjoy knowing that he is very handsome, in his way (and mine), and is considered quite a catch among his people, not least of all because he is a superb dancer.

Most importantly, he loves me. He hasn't said as much—to be honest, I departed so quickly after our last encounter that I hardly gave him the chance—but I know in my Heart that he does. Every day we've been apart, I've felt him calling out to me over the distance, and the permanent summonses have weakened my resolve to cling to Alice Kingsley's life for any longer. I wish to be reunited with him, mother. I desire it more than anything else in the world. I would wear itchy stockings and the tightest, most rigid, corset every minute of every day for the rest of my life—why, I would wear a codfish on my head, even—if it would buy me his company as I pen these words.

And yes, mother, we will marry. For your peace of mind, I promise that your daughter has never dishonored you (in _that_ particular manner, at least), though I confess that the Thought crossed my mind more than once during the last days I spent in Tarrant's company.

Perhaps I was wrong to write those last thoughts, but after Margaret's unsubtle comments yesterday evening on the matter, it is clear to me that you have worried for my virtue all throughout my journeys. Seeing as though I am now essentially confessing to a paramour, I figured I would be doing you a favor by relieving you of the anxiousness of uncertainty by confirming that I've, for lack of a better word, behaved.

Now that my reasons for departure are made clear, all that rests is to confess to the Destination. I've purposely left it to the last in hopes that the rest of my prose might've softened your all-encompassing sense of propriety and instead eased open the doors of Faith and Imagination, the only portal through which what I'm about to tell you has any hope of making it into your mind. Once again, I am at loss of words with which to express the peculiarity of my situation, and so I opt for bluntness. At a very young age, I fell through a rabbit hole and into a place which I named Wonderland. I had a great many adventures there, through which I met lovely friends, among which was Tarrant. After a while, I was returned to England, where I believed the entire journey to be nothing but a dream, which steadily degenerated into the nightmare that you've often heard me relate. At nineteen, while standing on the gazebo with Hamish on one knee before me, I spotted a white rabbit in a waistcoat sternly signaling the time. As you might remember, I left the gazebo at a run. I followed the rabbit and once again fell into Wonderland, which was greatly changed from the place of my childhood. My adventures this time around were entirely of a more grown-up sort, and revolved around putting the land to rights after a long-winded tyranny. The dangerous and entirely inappropriate nature of my doings in Underland—for that, and not Wonderland, is its real name—would surely be unpleasant to you and so I've resolved not to recount them here; sufficient to say that through their course I was reunited with not only my friends of old—Tarrant chief amongst them, all the more interesting now that I was enough of a woman to appreciate his better qualities—but also that elusive protagonist of this missive, that is to say, Absolutely Alice, the originator of all this commotion.

After I'd triumphed in my quest, I was offered the means through which I could return to London. Absolutely Alice wanted desperately to stay, but Alice Kingsley wasn't quite done with her life, so we partook in a deal: I would return to London and attempt to see my father's dreams to fruition, get my fill of the world I was born into, and then return to Underland and live out my days in the only place I've ever really belonged, with the only Man I could every really belong to.

Now, mother, I feel that that agreement has run its course. I've taken Alice Kingsley's life and goals as far as they could go, and am now ready to allow Absolutely Alice her promised freedom. The only things to hold me back are you and Margaret, but I must steel myself for our separation. Otherwise, I'm sure the distance between me and Underland—me and Tarrant—would embitter and poison our relationship to the point where everything would be worse off that it would've been if I'd simply left when I meant to. That is, essentially, why I write this Letter: so that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not to blame for my Departure or the woes of my clashes with society, that I am not dead, that even when you couldn't understand me, you still loved me, and that means everything to me.

I realize there are things in this Letter which you might not readily believe, or perhaps will never believe at all. Because I knew that would be so, I gravely considered penning a different Letter, one which would be easier for you to understand: in it, I would simply elope with an unknown lover, and remain away to save you from public humiliation. But that is not what I want, mother; I couldn't stand having you believe lies about my whereabouts for the rest of your life. I needed you to know the Truth, so that you could know that I was happy with my thoroughly-thought-through Decision. In conclusion, if you can't believe anything else, simply believe this: your youngest daughter is happy, in love with a Half-Mad Wonderful Man. She is building a life for herself in a place where she is admired and cherished. And always, always, always: your youngest daughter loves you with all her Heart, and she'll miss you dearly for the rest of her life.

Please tell Margaret as much. She is a beautiful mother and the best sister anyone could've been to someone as Mad as me.

Love Always and Forever,

Alice

PS: I finally realized, a raven and a writing desk don't have to be alike at all in order to be connected. Tarrant will be so proud!

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_Red Notes:_

_Well, that's it. A little pointless, I know, but hopefully amusing._

_I wasn't too sure about the postscript. I liked the idea well enough, but couldn't find the right way to word it. The point was Alice saying that she might be different from her mother, but that doesn't mean they aren't family, or they don't love one another... _

_I know most people picture a quick note on a Post-It when they imagine Alice dashing off to Underland, but from my point of view, Alice would never write it in a hurry. She'd try to make it as easy as possible for her mother and thus try to go very sensibly about the whole thing (ha!). I also kind of think she'd enjoy composing this letter in her head, figuring out what to say, what to leave out… So even if she did have to leave quickly, she'd had no trouble saying what she meant, because she's thought about it so much already…_

_My other favorite Moment in AiW fics is whenever Alice's Mother and Tarrant meet. Maybe I'll try my hand at that next, though I've already seen it written in such fun, amazing ways, that I hardly see the point…_

_Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for reading; I'd love it if you reviewed._

_-Fée_


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